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"the hot water isn't working" could be understood to mean "the water in the hot water tap is not hot", but it could also be understood to mean "the water is not flowing out of the hot water tap".
The picture helps clarify the original statement. OP, this interaction is not nearly as bizarre as you make it out to be. It's pretty typical of virtually all support requests. It's incredibly common, when asking for support, that the requester assumes information is obvious when it is in fact not.
It's still kind of a weird way to request that information. They could have just upfront asked "is the hot water tap not working at all, or is it just not hot?".
Having worked in IT I can tell you that often asking for specifics (even simple ones like what you said) will just get you a reply of "I don't know it's just broken. Fix it." If you even get a response at all. Asking for a screenshot (or a picture in this case) is an action that you are requiring the user to take and is much more likely to at least get a response even if the response isn't always helpful.
If the landlord had just asked for clarification I wouldn't be surprised if they just got a response of "It just doesn't work." Which is far less helpful than even that picture.
Yep. During my very short (6 mos) stint as a tech support rep for Dell, I've learned to assume your customer is an idiot. Even when they're using techie terms or jargon (and at times more so). Never assume other things besides that or you'll probably regret it.
You have to be very clear and precise. A single misunderstanding can take a simple problem a lot of time to get fixed.
15 out of 16 times, or more so, they're useless.
This is making me start to feel cold shivers due to barelly supressed memories...
While I agree with everything you wrote, this conversation is far from a typical support request. Both sides are fucking idiots without any common sense.
I'm assuming you recognize this is you're ex's kitchen sink.
I doubt he is "ex's kitchen sink"
In America we have both in the same faucet so the photo is less useful over here
Not sure what you're talking about. Hot and cold water definitely use different pipes. I'm not even sure how that would work with one pipe unless you were mixing right at the water heater or something.
The faucet not the pipes. The picture is of a faucet and there is one. Likely because hot and cold water both come out of it
The faucet tends to have some sort of control apparatus (maybe a "valve", sometimes festooned by a "knob") to enable the user to interactively choose the amount of water from each pipe that goes into the faucet.
Now, such apparatus might be comprised of two valves, each one for hot and cold water separately, or a single control which may be rotated to select the mixture amount, or an automaic thermostatic apparatus with a target water temperature dial that the operating user may set to a target temperature which may be called "hot" or "cold" and will adjust the water mixture from the hot and cold water pipes accordingly.
OP's picture seems to have been sent in bad faith, but it does include a control apparatus comprised of a valve with a knob, which can be construed as the tenant showing they had done their due diligence in discovering it is by turning the pertaining knob to open the hot water pipe valve, and nothing else, that after a reasonable waiting period, the water coming out of the faucet is indeed still cold and not hot as intended by the expected behavior of the installed mechanism.
If the tenant misled the landlord by showing a tap which had only a single cold water pipe connection, or failed to correctly operate the valves connected to the faucet in order to produce the desired hot water, then the landlord could fairly charge them with any delays or extra charges incurred from being provided with false information, like the cost of sending a plumber to check on the heater... instead of a dog with a stick to bonk the tenant for being an idiot and not turning the right valve to the faucet.